How can we all be more creative? How can we be inspired?
I came across this really great Youtube video today. It’s John Cleese, talking about where our creativity comes from and, not surprisingly, humour.
I can’t stress how fantastic this video is. If you’ve ever been stuck on what to write and how to go about finding the tools within yourself to spark your creativity, you MUST watch this.
For sale: One laughing ball
No, that’s not right. But I don’t know the actual name of the toy. Was it a “Laughing Bob”? The label is long worn off.
For sale: One Giggling Bob ball. Good for ages 1-4.
That’ll do. Sure, I feel bad selling it off to someone else. But I don’t know how else to get rid of it.
When I first bought it for the kids – I’m sure it worked fine in the store – I got it home and I couldn’t get it to work. According to the instructions, all you had to do was bang it and it was supposed to giggle. The kids loved the crazy high pitched laugh. I figured it would drive me nuts, but what the hell. Anything for the kids, right?
I tried changing the batteries. Nothing. Banged the hell out of it… no laughing (or giggling) Bob.
The first time I heard it go off, about a week later, it was 3:14 am. I got up to see if the kids had wandered out of bed, but they were fast asleep. And there was this stupid ball, laying in the middle of the living room floor. I just shook my head and went back to bed.
Next morning I kicked it. It didn’t make a sound. Maybe I dreamed it, I thought. Ha!
About a month after that, we were packing to move. One of the kids threw the ball into a box. I said we should just toss it in the garbage, but the kids liked it. They’d been using it to play catch, even though it wouldn’t make a sound. I said fine.
3:14 the next morning… Yeah. Giggling Bob was at it again. This time I got up and threw it in a garbage bag.
Garbage day was four days later.
Have you ever taken the trash to the curb and had it laugh at you? I’d have tossed it with no problem, except the kids (who I was taking to the bus stop at the time) caught me red-handed. Since the toy was in a trash bag with a pile of carpeting, and not with anything disgusting, back Giggling Bob went into the house.
Well, moving day came and went. Giggling Bob made it into a random box that, four years later remains unpacked. And I swear to God, if I am woken up at 3:14 again…
One Giggling Bob ball. Good for ages 1-4. Free to a good home.
That’s better.
Note: This story is semi-fictional, only in that I haven’t tried to sell the possessed ball yet. Yet.
“Do you have change for a twenty?”
That’s how it started – with those words.
“I think so,” I replied, juggling gloves and newspapers to dig into my pocket. I pulled out a couple of receipts and a five dollar bill and then went into the other pocket. Just as I was about to give up, I found a ten.
“Yes!” I exclaimed.
All right, maybe I wasn’t quite that excited. I was just collecting for my paper route after all.
It was while I was walking back down my customer’s driveway, my gloves still tucked under my arm, that I saw the writing on the $20 bill.
“Yes!” I exclaimed, for real this time. “It’s a blog post!”
This is what I saw.
I couldn’t wait to get home to check it out.
When I googled whereswilly, I saw a Wikipedia entry for it, so I decided to go there first — in case it was some kind of hacking thing. It turns out it wasn’t.
According to Wiki, the “Willy” refers to Sir Wilfred Laurier, past Prime Minister of Canada. There are apparently close to 4,000,000 bills in circulation with this message, and you can, in fact, register on the website to see where the bill has been AND be emailed to find out where it goes. It’s based on a “Where’s George” site in the U.S., to track currency there, and has been used by researchers to track the movement of pandemics, such as SARS.
Isn’t that interesting?
I’m only the second person who has tracked this particular $20, but I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes. According to the website, I can do this with any bill, any time.
You can check out the Wiki page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where%27s_Willy%3F
Have you heard of this before? Have you ever come across a bill with a website written on it? Do you want to start one? It’s so cool!
First it was the ice storm. Remember that? Back in December, just before Christmas I slipped on the ice and hit my head on a concrete step. Result: concussion. Thank goodness I had the lovely villainous Navigator1965 to cover for me.
Then there were the frost quakes. They were fun.
And let’s not forget the icicles, that led to the destruction of my eavestroughs.
And now? To add insult to injury, the ice is laughing at me:
Can you see the big grin? Just in case, I drew eyebrows, eyes, a mustache and a goatee on him:
Have I mentioned lately that I’m sick of winter?
For all you parents out there who think their young kids take advantage, consider this:
A Deaf child who doesn’t want to go to bed, really can act like he’s not listening if he refuses to look at you…
The wind blows where ever it wants to blow. It’s warming up outside and so the gusts are fierce. It’s days like today when branches weakened from the weight of snow and ice come down on roofs and cars (two things I’ve been having problems with of late). Times like this I listen to the creaking of the trees around my house and I want to say to the wind:
Wind, dude, stop blowin’ already. Get outta my trees. C’mon man. Ye’r makin’ me nervous, dude.
But you can’t reason with the wind. It blows where ever it wants.
Like ice. It forms when it snows, and then the snow melts and the water sits there until it freezes into sheets of slippery pavement that have me flailing as I deliver my newspapers. Like the wind, I want to say to the ice:
Ice! Stop being so damn slippery!
But you can’t reason with the ice. It keeps on being slick. So much so that I thought this morning, as I slid around the block not moving my feet because the wind was blowing me on this ice, maybe this combo ain’t so bad after all.
Dude.
The last thing I want to do is worry my mother, so I’m keeping this quiet. I can tell all of you though, because she doesn’t read my blog.
I think her car is trying to kill me.
I went out in it today to pick up some groceries, for myself as well as for her. As I came up to a stop sign I put my foot on the brake and the engine started to rev. The more I pushed the brake, the faster the engine went – and the faster the car went. Luckily there was nothing coming (and there were no cops around) because I blasted through that stop sign.
Since then I’ve started putting it into neutral when I want to stop. That’ll teach it.
But in the meantime, would someone please tell it I was only going to buy her cookies?
Apparently the editors at the newspaper I deliver have a head-start on the holiday. They’re already drunk.
(click to enlarge)
P.S. Family Day is Monday February 17th.
There are reasons why unpublished authors don’t walk around telling people they’re writing a novel. First and foremost is the puzzled, glazed-over expression that immediately comes over the other person’s face, as they think to themselves, What kind of a flake am I talking to? Then quickly on the heels of that comes the hasty change-of-subject or the hands-behind-the-back stroll-away as they whistle and hope the author doesn’t follow them all the way home.
But it comes to something when an novelist’s family members don’t even take him/her seriously.
Are you a novelist? Do you ever hear your significant other say, over the phone, thinking you’re not listening, “Oh yeah, it’s just a hobby,” regarding your writing? Does the person supposedly looking after your kids allow them to come and ask you questions while you’re trying to work? Do people wander in to ask you if you’d like coffee while you’re trying to write?
It’s said that marketing a book is harder than writing, but on some days I seriously wonder. It takes a great deal of concentration to write something as complicated as a novel. There are many things to keep track of, characters to write and to get into, believe it or not. Getting into a character’s head so that his or her voice comes through well takes time.
So if you walk in on a working author to ask if he/she wants a cup of coffee (the answer is no) and he/she turns to you slowly and asks you in return if you’d care to have your fingernails removed with a screwdriver, chances are the author is in the middle of a torture scene and it has nothing to do with you. Still, back away with your hands behind your back and try to remember next time, IT’S NOT JUST A HOBBY!
I’M AN AUTHOR – IN REAL LIFE!
End rant.
Snow – 1, BBQ – 0
Family members alive – 5, Novels edited – 0
Hairs left attached to my scalp – 100,000, Hairs in my shower drain – 99,999
Hours of sleep – 35, Brain cells remaining – 2
Icicles – 100, Buckets full of water inside the house from ice melting on the roof 20
Bottles of wine consumed – 3, Contentedness quotient – 3
Blog posts conceptualized – 21, Blog posts posted – 7
Hours worked – 133, Earnings – 0
Family members alive – 5, Laughs – countless
In all I’d say I’m doing okay.
lindaghill.com 